Sri Lanka Cricket’s top financial officer arrested on corruption charges

Sri Lanka cricket is going through a bad phase, both on and off the field. While the team has failed to impress on the 22 yards for quite some time now, off it, the SLC‘s chief financial officer Wimal Nandika Dissanayake has been arrested in relation to financial misappropriation during the recent home series against South Africa. The misappropriation is reportedly related to broadcasting fees that were to be given to the board from the series.

The CID arrested Dissanayake following an investigation, Sri Lanka Police Media Spokesperson Ruwan Gunasekara confirmed the news. The official was taken into custody after Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) chief executive officer lodged a complaint with the police over financial embezzlement. Gunasekara noted that the misappropriation amounted to over $187,000 (Rs 1.37 crore).

“The complaint says the SLC’s television rights have been going to Sony since 2013. At the last South African tour, this main suspect asked Sony to deposit 15 percent of the television rights fees to a private account in America. Sony became suspicious when this suspect informed it (of the requirement) for a deposit of 50 percent of television rights fees from an ongoing England tour and it informed Sri Lanka cricket, the SLC official was quoted as saying by Cricbuzz.

Neither the lawyers of the 42-year-old Dissanayake nor Sony was available for their reaction, the report added.
Dissanayake’s arrest comes in the wake of former Sri Lanka captain Sanath Jayasuriya being accused of breaching the International Cricket Council’s Anti-corruption Code.

Arjuna Ranatunga seeks India’s help

Former Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga, a minister now, said he and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe had sought India’s help in dealing with the probe for they felt the Indian police had a good record for probing match-fixing and other corrupt practices in the game.

“We made this request because it is not only the players who are involved in this corruption. There is a group behind the players like bookies and betting agents. If we get the group, we can find out the root cause of this problem,” Ranatunga was quoted as saying to the media in Colombo after a brief visit to India.

[interaction id=”5bcda3d0273bf60a0fea009e”]

Get the latest Cricket News and updates from all the cricketing action, Match Predictions, Fantasy Cricket Tips and lots more on CricTracker.com.